It might be a good time to think back to the First Gulf War. In 1990, the United States was still a little gun shy from the Vietnam War, and we were still feeling smug and self righteous about the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. So it would have been really easy for the United States to pretend to extreme moral superiority when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Instead, Bush, with the aid of some real smart people, including Scowcraft, Powell and a few others, set five basic rules for dealing with Kuwait:
1. Identify a legitimate and compelling national interest.
2. Confirm that military force will meet a compelling national interest.
3. Apply the force necessary to meet the compelling interest.
4. Have a viable and realistic exit strategy
5. Politics or hurt feelings or bruised ego are not a compelling national interests
The Gulf War was a perfect example of limited war by international consensus-aggression of one un member state against another. But the United States also refused to allow the mission to go beyond the objective of evicting Iraqi troops from Kuwait. We did not go to Baghdad. Identify, confirm, apply and leave.
What never seeks to amaze me was how totally W. ignored this basic doctrine.
What amazes me even more is that Obama wants to make the same mistakes that W made in Afghanistan and Iraq.
We have zero interest in Syria. We have no mandate to intervene in Syria or legal right or treaty right; either we respect the jurisdiction of the UN or we don’t. The Obama Regime has no objective it can achieve, it has no force to carry out a proper objective, and there is no exit strategy. hurling cruise missiles and then walking away is more of a temper tantrum than a response. In the absence of a plan, and with unacceptable risk of retaliation against our allies, going into Syria at all is unacceptable, illegal, immoral and just plain stupid. Well, that’s been the best way to sum up Obama’s foreign policy for the past five years.